THE MUSTANG, OR WILD HORSE. 465 



splenetic, and unconquerably ill-grained, in a ratio equal 

 their declension from the full standard of proportion and 

 power. 



The cavayards of the Rio Grande valley and California, 

 are composed sometimes of a thousand mares and eight or 

 ten studs, by whom the females are divided into families of 

 from eighty to a hundred and twenty, the number a good 

 deal regulated by their individual prowess. For wars of 

 jealous rivalry are incessantly occurring among them, and 

 who that is best able to protect his concubines has most of 

 them. They sometimes have very furious battles with the 

 wild asses of the country, from which they generally come 

 off worst. These are most merciless ravishers; and after 

 having frequently killed, or entirely used up the stallions, 

 they will scatter the cavayard so that they can never be got 

 together again. 



The mares, which have all been disabled from running fast 

 by a cruel practice on the part of their owners, of severing 

 one of the tendons at the knee, cannot escape from these 

 ferocious gallants, who, more inexorable than the " Old Man 

 of the Sea" of Sindbad, will cling to them for days till their 

 object be accomplished, through sheer exhaustion on the 

 part of the victim. The produce of this connection 



" Who in the lusty stealth of nature take 

 More composition and fierce quality 



is a clean-limbed, vigorous, powerful animal. Indeed, the 

 mule thus bred is, immeasurably, far the most active, spirited, 

 swift and enduring of all the long-eared genus. They are 

 not so heavy-boned as the Kentucky mules, but they can 

 kill two or three of them as travellers, and are really most 

 delightful animals for the saddle; and being high before, 

 with light heads, some of them are very handsome, and quite 

 the average height of our saddle horses. 



As our hemisphere is indebted to the priest accompanying 



30 



